About Me

I am Cécile, a French woman, mother of two, living in Netherlands, a few minutes biking from beautiful Amsterdam.

I am a traveler who grew up and worked on different continents and countries (West Africa, France, Spain, Morocco, Netherlands), which fueled my curiosity for individuals, cultures, and how we manage our personal struggles in different environments.

I interact with people from a place of compassion, openness, trust, playfulness – I build a safe space in which I can connect with people and, more importantly, in which they can connect with themselves at a deep level.

I have always seen people beyond how they present themselves to the world. My deep belief is that we all have power, strength, healing capacities – and I enjoy bringing the light onto it, empowering people session after session. It’s never too late, we are never too broken – there are always so many possibilities.

Being diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases in my early 40s changed my life.
For years I had ignored my body and my emotions – physical pain and discomfort, chronic stress and anxiety, treating it as something I needed to control, overcome, master. This diagnostic, or more accurately the ensemble of symptoms it described, was the fire alarm that I needed to reevaluate how I handled life in general – work with my body and my feelings instead of against them.

I used the analytic, organized and resourceful mind that a career in finance gave me to research and study how I could become healthier and happier.

After training in Transformational Coaching, I started to work with clients who were in so many different paths in life – meeting them where they were, carefully choosing in my toolbox what would serve them was the most fulfilling part of my work.
I kept on reading, studying, being open and curious – when I found out Gabor Mate’s work, I immediately signed up for professional training in Compassionate Inquiry, followed by the mentorship. Many pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall in place !

Today I see myself as a wounded healer, and always a work in progress. And I am resilient, grounded, peaceful ( a growing portion of the time).

I am passionate about using Compassionate Inquiry to bring healing, peace and connection.

Looking forward to meeting you!

With Clint Paddison

Meet the wonderful and inspiring Clint, a must see on TEDxBondUniversity (Video; 18 minutes). He talks about his experiences battling Rheumatoid Arthritis symptoms, and explains what has worked for him. This kind of strategy is very powerful at improving physical well-being, giving room to work on the root cause with other modalities.

I had the pleasure to be a guest in three episodes of Clint Paddison’s podcast. Clint is Australian, he struggled for years with a very aggressive Rheumatoid Arthritis and when he achieved to be pain free, meds free, he decided to share his findings with anyone who would be interested. Working with him has been a break-through in my health journey.

With Wendy Walrabenstein

I had the pleasure to meet Wendy Walrabenstein in my health journey. She was the dietician I turned to when I decided to transition my little family to a plant-based way of eating. Little did I know I was about to meet a dedicated researcher! Of course, we ended up working together. This interview was recorded (2018) as an inspiration for people who want to improve their lifestyle, for example because they have arthritis. In particular, it is used for the program Plants for Joints. Reade, an Amsterdam based clinic specialized in the treatment of rheumatism, is currently investigating the effect of this lifestyle program on patients with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.

Wendy has a series of video’s on het website where she gives tips and advice on dieting, some of them produced together with Libelle TV. Check out her series here.